


Suddenly It's You

by SkyBluePinkWithPurpleDots



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Steve is Captain America, modern!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7293289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyBluePinkWithPurpleDots/pseuds/SkyBluePinkWithPurpleDots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is still Captain America but Bucky is a modern veteran. AU in which suddenly soulmarks appear for everyone overnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suddenly It's You

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [緣來是你](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7740919) by [abbabccd05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbabccd05/pseuds/abbabccd05)



> This was supposed to be longer but to be honest the EU Referendum has depressed me so much (plus it will likely make jjob searching SO much harder) that I'm just going to post it as a meet-cute so... yeah I would like to come back to this someday when things are better but I'll keep it as a one shot for now. It works this way too I think. BTW If anyone has recs for Cap!Steve and Modern!Bucky let me know!

Bucky was woken by a weird prickly sensation on his right wrist…his _only_ wrist.

He groaned and tried to get back to sleep. He’d finally started sleeping well without nightmares and any interrupted sleep felt like he was going back to the days of late night infomercials and coffee. The pricking turned to pain and he gasped, sitting up and fumbling for the light. His wrist was red, almost like a burn and as the pain got more intense he could see black shapes forming, eventually turning into letters.

Steven Grant Rogers

“What the fuck…?”

\----------

He was reawakened some hours later by an incessant banging on his door- there were only two people who cared about him enough to come to his home but he still pulled on a long-sleeved shirt before opening the door to see which one it was. Both of them, it turned out.

“Clint. Nat.” Bucky grunted a greeting as he yawned.

“You’ve just woke up? Seriously? It’s 2pm, even Clint is usually awake before this.”

“Couldn’t sleep, because-” Bucky paused remembering the weird nightmare he’d had about seeing Captain freaking America’s real name on his wrist.

“Dude, you don’t know?” Clint peered at Bucky over his ever-present sunglasses “For real?”

Natasha sighed and pushed past Bucky heading for the main room. She switched on the TV to the news. Bucky never watched the news, she knew that.

“Nat-“

“Just watch, Bucky.” She pointed at the TV where the newscaster was talking in a much more animated tone than usual.

“…getting reports on social media from all over the globe. This is not a localised phenomenon, and we are seeing names written in all known writing systems…” They started showing pictures of people’s wrists with names written on them in black ink, Bucky flinched and unconsciously hid his wrist behind his back.

“It’s everyone, dude, everyone just woke up with a name on them.”

“Some people were awake though, I mean it happened at the exact same time so it was daytime in some places. Mine woke me up, I saw it come through. This one slept through the whole thing.” Clint shrugged.

“I’m a deep sleeper, what can I say?”

“So…uh… whose name did you get?” They both held up their wrists, so Bucky could see that they had each other’s names written in black. “What does it mean?” Natasha shrugged

“No-one knows… there’s already a bunch of random theories on the net though.”

“Why? Who’d you get?” Clint was squinting at him curiously.

“I, uh- I don’t…” Bucky took a step away hiding his hand behind his back.

“Dude, just show us.”

“Leave him, Clint. It’s private.”

They sat down to watch the rest of the news together, Bucky’s mind racing. How? But more importantly why? The names can’t just be random can they? What the hell does it mean? He glanced over at Natasha, curled up against Clint. Maybe the names were who you were thinking of recently? He kinda had this nightly fantasy about Captain America rescuing him from some catastrophe and then- _Oh God_. What if the name was the last person you thought about when you…when you… Clint and Natasha must think of each other surely, when they had… ‘alone time’. What if that was the reason and he was stuck with Captain America’s name forever and people would automatically know that a) he was gay and b) he was a dumb fanboy. Oh, please, no…

\----------------

It took a few months for the dust to settle and for people to try to figure out what was going on. Scientists, religious leaders, politicians, they all had a say, but in the end it was the hive mind of the Internet that had the most plausible explanation. _Soulmates_. Plausible, but no less ridiculous than any other. Bucky didn’t know if he believed it really, I mean, how could he? When he had the name of a very handsome, upstanding, goddamn flesh-and-blood superhero on his remaining wrist. Even if Steve Rogers were gay he would never even glance at a mostly-recovered vet with one arm, a friend-count of two and a bad morning attitude.

Almost as soon as people started finding each other on social media, specific soulmate searching websites and apps appeared. Clint said he should try them, see if there was a different Steven Grant Rogers out there looking for him. That was after he’d stop laughing at Bucky’s wrist.

“Patriotic, dude.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“God bless America.”

“I swear to all gods I will end you, Barton.”

Instead Bucky had developed a slight obsession with Steve Rogers. He was following Cap’s Instagram as well as the official Avengers account. There were pictures of Steve and the other Avengers on the official account but none on Steve’s personal account. That was usually just pictures of sunrises, scenery and modern things he found interesting. Bucky’s favourites were a picture of Steve holding a Dorito taken by Stark, and one of Steve and Falcon laughing, it was rare to see a picture of Captain America laughing but there he was head thrown back and everything. He rolled over in bed and reached for his phone automatically to check his Instagram feed. After blearily scrolling through a few random pictures of Clint shooting various targets, his blood ran cold. He sat straight up staring at the picture of Steve and Sharon Carter smiling on the Avengers account. There was no description, just a single hashtag.

#soulmates

That was that then. Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter were soulmates. That put to rest the fan theory that Cap – as a man out of time – wouldn’t have a soulmate at all. And dashed Bucky’s tiny tiny hope that he was wrong, that Cap _was_ gay, and had a soulmate and that soulmate was _him_.

Time for a new theory.

Bucky made coffee and slumped on the couch to google the thing that had been niggling at him for a couple of weeks but that he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge until now. He sighed, took a swig of cheap coffee and typed: 'unrequited soulmates'. A few hours later and Bucky had read enough. Turns out there were a couple of people who had reported that they had a name and the other person had a different name.

One had decided to live close by to the couple and be a best friend to their soulmate.

_Good luck with your torture_.

The other had decided to join the army and get as far away as possible. And kill things probably.

_Been there done that._

Bucky decided to simply carry on as he had been doing, well after a full week of drinking himself to sleep that is. It wasn’t like he was really dating before this whole horrorshow anyway. And there were actually a lot more people looking for easy random hook-ups while they wait for The Named One. So he’d never settle down. Whatever. He was fine. He was going to be fine.

\--------------------

“You’re not fine.”

“I am fine.”

“People who say they are fine are never fine.”

“I am- thriving.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and grabbed Bucky’s laptop.  “Bucky all you have in your history is Captain America fansites, soulmate sites, and porn. I’m assuming about very muscular blond guys.”

“That’s private, Natalia.”

Natasha sighed, and set the laptop aside.  “I think you should try and talk to him.”

“There’s no point.”

“Some people have two names y’know.”

Bucky looked up sharply. “They what now?”

“Sure, Darcy does.” Natasha concentrated on the screen as she talked.

“Who is Darcy?”

“My friend, her soulmates are Jane and Thor”

“Who the hell are Jane and Thor?”

“She found them on a soulmate tracking site, Jane’s an astrophysicist and Thor is Norwegian. He’s coming over and the three of them are going to be a triad.”

“But, they all have each other’s names though, right?”

“So you’ll be a V not a triangle, might do you good to share. Aaaand we’re done.” She looked up and smiled that very scary smile. Bucky was instantly on edge.

“What did you do, Nat?”

“I signed you up for the most trustworthy tracking site. I even used my credit card. You’re welcome.”

“You did what?! Like a dating app?” Bucky made to grab the laptop in horror but Natasha pulled it away.

“The reason that you pay for this one is that they have a personal service so it’s very secure and discreet. They ONLY give out information if both parties provide the exact matching name and if both agree to be found. Which you do.”

“I do not.”

“You actually do. OK, so because this is the most secure site, it’s the one Steven Grant Rogers would most likely use.”

“He probably doesn’t know technology that well…”

“He’s not an idiot, James. Give him some credit.” Bucky flopped back onto the couch. Maybe… maybe this would give him closure? When he didn’t get a reply he could get on with his life like it was before.

“How long does it take?”

“If your partner is already in the system then you should hear back in a couple of days. If not then they keep your details until they join, so long as you keep paying. And I’m footing the bill so don’t worry.” Bucky tucked his hair behind his ears, and thought for a few seconds.

“Thank you, Nat.”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s watch something lame and forget about it.”

“Once Upon a Time?”

“Oh my god, not again. You do not look like the Mad Hatter, Bucky.”

“I actually really do.”

“He is way hotter than you.”

\-----------------------------

In the course of the next week one thing happened and one thing didn’t. The thing that happened was that Stark admitted that he added the hashtag as a joke, and Sharon Carter announced that her soulmate was a very nice, very not super man who wanted to stay out of the public eye. Steve hadn’t made any comment about the incident. Of course a lot of people thought that this was a cover-up and that they actually were soulmates after all. Whatever. The thing that didn’t happen was that Bucky didn’t hear anything back from the site. Natasha said she was totally fine paying for it, she had a lot of disposable income. She was a fairly high up member of some corporation but still lived in Clint’s run down building because Clint loved it there. They really were soulmates. Bucky carried on going to work at the call centre, going to the gym and even having a couple of hook-ups. There was Wade, who was apparently avoiding ‘Vanessa’, and Johnny who refused to take off his wrist cuff, which was cool- Bucky did the same. And Johnny was hot, like really hot, and if he squinted a bit he looked like Steve. It’d been really hard not to moan Steve’s name when Johnny was pounding into him. Johnny seemed like he’d be up for another round, maybe Bucky would text him again. A week after Johnny, Bucky woke to an email notification. From the soulmate site.

“Oh shit.” What if they told him to give up? Or what if his soulmate was a different Steven Grant Rogers and they found him. Or… No, don’t go down that path. That way lies disappointment. He got dressed and got coffee to give himself some time to calm down then came back to open up the email.

_Dear James,_

_Your name verification: James Buchanan Barnes_

_Soulmate name verification: Steven Grant Rogers_

_Congratulations! Your soulmate has joined the site and has provided your name! We now want to take the next step in verification in order to make sure this is absolutely your soulmate. Please send us photo ID, a photograph with your face and your soulmates name legible (once confirmed this picture will be sent to your soulmate) and how you would like to contact your soulmate._

_Please note that the next step will incur a separate charge from your standard membership fees. As your account is a gift account the bill-payer will receive a separate email with billing details._

_We wish you the very best in your future and look forward to hearing from you soon!_

Holy shit. It had happened. It was still likely that it wasn’t THE Steven Grant Rogers, but still. Bucky had a soulmate. A real soulmate. He wasn’t going to be alone anymore! He suddenly felt half-excited and half terrified. What if his soulmate didn’t want him after he found out about the arm, or the PTSD that he’d mostly but never entirely dealt with. Wait, what if his soulmate was a total asshole? What would that say about Bucky? He needed help.

“Hello?”

“Nat- I need- I-“

“Bucky, what’s wrong are you ok?”

“I- soulmate, shit-”

“Bucky, take some breaths with me, ok?” Natasha had helped him through more than enough panic attacks to help him before it got too bad. Once he was feeling better, he took a deep breath.

“My soulmate joined the site, Nat.”

“…I’m on my way.”

\--------------------------

Nat brought Clint, Clint brought bagels- and an American Flag.

“You should totally stand in front of this for the picture!”

“Why do you even have that, Clint?”

“I dunno. It was in the basement with a bathtub and a taxidermy collection.”

“Let’s not get distracted, boys. We need to get a good picture of Bucky for Steve.” Bucky ran his hand through his long hair, it was down to his shoulders now. Maybe he should’ve cut it. “You look fine, James.” Natasha smiled softly at him.

“I would.” Clint smirked at him and winked. Bucky chuckled.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.” He and Natasha headed to Bucky’s closet to pick out some clothes. “Hey, Nat?”

“Hmmm?”

“What am I going to do about…” Bucky gestured vaguely towards his missing arm.

“Oh. What do you want to do about it?” She sat down on the bed and Bucky sat with her.

“I mean. I could hide it in the picture pretty easily. Not scare him off.”

“He’s your soulmate, Bucky. He won’t be scared off.”

“But what if he is?”

“Well, one, wouldn’t you rather know that sooner? And two, if he does run off you can come live with Clint and me and be our spinster housekeeper.”

Bucky snorted. “I guess…I’ll show him in the picture. But not too much.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

It took a good couple of hours of changing clothes, and taking pictures before they got one Bucky was happy with. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and you could see the lack of arm but it wasn’t forced into the shot. He was smiling but not creepily, and you could clearly see the name on his wrist. They sent off all the details, then played cards for the rest of the afternoon.

It only took two days to get a reply. Bucky’s hands were shaking as he held his phone. There was a message from the soulmate site. It had said that the details were confirmed, the payment had gone through, _thank_ _you_ _Natasha_ , and he now had Steven Grant Rogers’s cellphone number and an as yet unopened photo attachment. He took a few deep breaths, reminded himself not to be disappointed, and clicked on the photo.

Holy Mary mother of Christ.

It was him. It was Captain Freaking America.

Smiling slightly nervously and holding up his wrist which said clearly ‘James Buchanan Barnes’. His wildest fantasy had just literally come true.

He ran to the bathroom to throw up.

How could this be right?

\--------------------------

“Dude.”

“I know.”

“I mean….Dude.”

“I know, Clint.”

Natasha looked expectantly at Bucky. “Are you going to call him?”

“No, I will text him like a normal person.”

“I think calling’s more his style.”

“Don’t be ridiculous only phone scams call anymore.”

“It’s retro, like him”

“Nat-“ Bucky’s phone suddenly started ringing and all three them stared at it.

“Is that-?”

“Oh fuck.”

“Answer it, James!” Bucky just looked at Natasha in terror. She rolled her eyes and glared at him, Bucky shook his head, Natasha sighed and pointed to the phone, which Clint was now holding and _oh_ _shit_ -

“Hello. Barnes-‘s…es…cellular phone. How may I direct your call?” Bucky looked at Clint in horror. He snatched at the phone as Clint jumped on the sofa out of reach. “And whom may I say is calling?” Natasha pulled Clint’s legs out from under him as Bucky grabbed the phone desperately.

“Hello?”

“Is that James?”

“No, uh I mean yes. Yes, it is, I go by Bucky though that’s…uh…”

A deep voice chuckled on the other end of the line. “Bucky, huh? Ok, I can live with that. I’m Steve.”

“Hi.”

“Hi”


End file.
